Nobel Prize Winner Praises New Book's Case for Animal Intelligence and
Emotion
http://www.pcrm.org/newsletter/ apr10/balcombe.html
Do baboons have a keen sense of right and wrong? Do chickens find certain human
faces attractive in the same way people do? Do cats and dogs get their feelings
hurt? In his new book, Second Nature,
Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D., an ethologist and biologist affiliated with PCRM,
makes the case that animals, once viewed only as mindless automatons, actually
have rich sensory experiences and emotional complexity.

"New scientific findings reveal that animals are perceptive, intelligent, and
emotional in ways undreamt of a generation ago,” says
Dr. Balcombe, whose
earlier book Pleasurable Kingdom explored animals’ capacity for happiness. “Our
new understanding should influence how we treat other species. It’s time for a
new ethic and dramatic shift in humankind’s relationship with other animals.”

Dr. Balcombe draws on new research, observational studies, and personal
anecdotes to reveal the full spectrum of animal experience. Balcombe paints a
new picture of the inner lives of animals that diverges from the struggle-or-
perish image often presented in the popular media. He challenges traditional
views of animals and spells out why the human-animal relationship needs a
complete overhaul.

“Jonathan Balcombe is a rare being, a scientist who has escaped the narrow
orthodoxies of institutional science, an intelligent human being who is more
than ready to recognize intelligences of other kinds, an intuitive and
empathetic observer who nevertheless does not abandon the highest standards of
intellectual inquiry,” says J.M. Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature, who wrote the book’s foreword.